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Thursday, September 9, 2010

Well, 23 months with Blair have come and gone like 23 days. In one month this sweet baby will be 2. We are still in awe of Blair every day. She is the toughest, strongest, and sweetest thing you will ever meet. Seriously. And she’s funny too!

She’s still in size 3 diapers. She wears 18 month dresses (some are getting too short), from 12 to 24 month shorts and 24 month pants (taken up in the waist) and a size 5 shoe. And as for oxygen… lately she’s been able to go some nights without it at all!

While we were at the beach, we successfully made the full transition from the bottle to the sippy cup. We had tried once before, and Blair lost weight. She always drank her pediasure better through a bottle, but she has used a cup for a while now -- on the side. I thought our change in scenery would be a good time to try again, and it worked!

Today we got great news… she has officially hit the magic number: 20. Blair weighed 20 pounds 4 ounces at the doctor’s office today when we went for our flu shots. YAAAAY BLAIR!

I wasn’t sure about turning her seat around in the car since it’s safer to rear face, but I did it anyway earlier this week. I figure she’s probably a lot stronger than a 20 pound 1 year old. Plus, she’s sat looking at nothing and getting no air conditioning for long enough! The poor thing says “hot” when I put her in her car seat after the car has been sitting for a while. Then, the other day when we were running some errands, it was pretty hot outside, and every time I got her out of the cool car, she said “hot.” It made me laugh every time! And now if I say that I’m hot, she says “Mama hot.”

Glasses on her head.

She’s doing that a lot lately. In the past two weeks, she has really stepped up the two word phrases. Most of the phrases come with mama or dada attached. Mama daf (bath), dada daf (apparently she thinks we’re pretty dirty folks because she says this a lot), mama camra (camera), dada home, mama toafft (toast), mama awa, and there are more. She will pretty much add anything to dada or mama. The other day after we fed the chickens a left over waffle, when we went back down to collect the eggs, she said “chicken awa.” Except she says chicken with her mouth closed, so no one would know what she was saying but me, and if you’ve seen the latest videos, you know that sometimes it even takes me a second!

The funniest words she tries to say are paper towel and toilet paper. I’m going to try to get them on video. Some other stuff on my list for this past month: all done, ball out, drop ball (for Gus and Buddy), doan (come on), eye mmm (ice cream), yellow, orange, tub, block, tractor shirt (shirt is with mouth closed). I’m sure there are more, but this will give me a good idea when I read back in the future. She’s not talking like some 2 year olds I know, but she’s making progress, and we are grateful for that. I have to also remember that she misses a lot of stuff by not being able to play with other children, go to birthday parties, go to church, and so on. One day. When that day comes, I’ll be as nervous as a cat!

She picks out her clothes a lot of the time. ;) And she likes to “dump” (jump).

Last week, my camera battery was dead so I took it out to charge it. Blair wanted to play with the camera and kept saying “uh oh” because it wouldn’t turn on. I explained to her that it needed a new battery. She went to her room and got hearing aid batteries. So cute. She knows about some hearing aid batteries! Every once in a while I forget and put her to bed with her hearing aids on, and when I go in later to put on her monitor and check on her, she has taken the batteries out of her hearing aids, and all the pieces are laying in her bed. She’s so sweet to turn them off for mommy! (Opening the battery door is how we turn off her aids.)

Then, she was playing with the little container of ear plugs in our bedroom, and she couldn’t get the top off, so she went to the kitchen and got the tongs.

She ate french toast for the first time this week. She’s not crazy about eggs by themselves (but I still give them to her all the time – some day she might eat them!), but I can soak up just about a whole egg and some milk into a piece of french toast. I cooked it in some butter, and she liked it. Of course she loves “up” (syrup) on it too. Syrup has to be in every waffle square when she has a waffle.

She still eats almost no meat.

She still adores the outside, and the mosquitoes adore her. I have to be really careful with her at the chicken coop. It’s just on the edge of the woods, and there are so many mosquitoes, you would have thought you’d entered a rain forest. There must have been one in her room last night because she has four bites on the backs of her elbows (she sleeps on her tummy with her hands tucked under her belly) and probably 8 or 10 on the backs of her legs. I put spray on her when we got outside, so I have no idea when it could have happened other than in the house. Who knows. Poor thing – they welt up to about the size of a quarter.

Uh oh.

We have been singing “wash, wash, wash, your hands/hair/dog/whatever” for a while now, and now she’s singing it. It’s “ah, ah, ah, ah, ah….” She also adores the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and the ABCs.

The first priorities in the mornings: getting pacis off the floor, hearing aids (fingers in her ears), and her movie. She wakes most every morning throwing her hand up over her head (it’s her trunk!) and trying to say elephant. She wants to watch Baby Noah while we do breathing treatments.

Putting on clothes, several different outfits a day, is the latest obsession. And she wants to do it herself. She LOVES clothes. She slept with an outfit one night this week as if it were a blanket. I know. We’re in trouble. At least maybe I’ll have a job soon!

All dressed and playing with her nativity set.

But we had to try on the green dress and now put the blue on back on. (The mattress on the floor is part of our new entertainment!)

Starting over again.

Blair, you are our absolute joy. You can see it all over mine and your daddy’s faces every minute that we’re with you. We are looking forward to celebrating TWO YEARS next month! More to come on that. Plans are underway!

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Child of God, wife of a farmer, mom to a miracle, RN; picture taker, animal lover, Spanish speaker, world traveler, former high school teacher. I love food, knitting, blogging, and living in a small town. I write about a little of all of the above!

Brad is my husband of 6 years and the reason I live across the branch. From a very young age he knew he'd be a farmer. God gave him the love and the talent -- and he's the best looking and the best dressed farmer I know! He's funny, creative, and he's the most wonderful husband and father. He's the one that can make Blair light up like no other.

Blair is four! We are so blessed to have her. She was born very sick, but God gave her strength and brought her through it. She has hearing loss called Auditory Neuropathy and wears hearing aids. She also has chronic lung disease, but you wouldn't know by seeing her! She is the busiest, funniest little thing who keeps us laughing and on our toes. I thank God for her every day.

Leighton is the happy roly poly who joined our family this summer. He has been a joy and is as sweet as his big sister! He's such a blessing, and we're so thankful for him!